Pornography – A way of Life?
Something is missing. Young teenagers, even kids ten or eleven year old (or even younger!) act differently. The way they walk, talk and act has changed. They are not shy. They are not innocent. They are not … children. No, not all of them, but so many of them. Some get into serious trouble; some act out with deviant behavior you’d find unthinkable.
There are so many problems, and they are so often inter-related. But we’re not going to get into a discussion here about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, or the violent influences of gangs. We are going to analyze another insidious influence: pornography.
It’s on the displays on their mobile phones, in the songs they listen to, in magazines and books, DVDs and, of course, on-line.
Let’s take a look at a terrifying statistics (according to Jerry Ropelato, CEO of Top10 Reviews):
- 4.2 million pornography sites – 12% of all sites on the worldwide web
- 2.5 billion pornographic emails sent daily – 8% of all email
- Pornography is a $57 billion industry worldwide
- Men admitting to accessing pornography at work – 20%
- US adults who visit Internet pornography websites regularly – 40 million (!)
- Adults admitting Internet sexual addiction – 10%
- Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites – 72% male, 28% female
So pornography is indeed pervasive in our adult culture. But the real tragedy is that porn is increasingly pervasive in children’s lives: /p>
- Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography: 11 years old
- Largest consumer group for Internet pornography: 12-17 year olds
- 15-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures: 80%
- 8-16 year olds having viewed porn online – 90% (most while doing homework)
Now what’s wrong with this picture? Is your child an on-line porn consumer? Probably yes, even if you don’t think so.
“The starry sky above and the moral law within” – Kant
The statistics do not lie. As adults, we are consumers of legal pornography(we are not talking about the illegal and hideously grotesque child pornography, although it is certainly a related horror). But as adults we do have some responsibilities as well. We must protect the children of our world.
We are not talking about restricting legitimate free speech and legal commerce. But we must be adamant in protecting the innocence of our children.
Would you still go online, looking for free porn, knowing that your eight-year old child might follow your trail and see the same thing? Would you sleep well at night knowing that your 13- year-old daughter knows what “gang-bang” means? What if your 14-year-old son was arrested for rape one day, his brain messed up with images you do not even dare to think about? What about deviant sexual behavior like sexual torture? You don’t want to think about it, do you?
Ideally, we would all stop being consumers of this filth. But we don’t live in an ideal world. And even if we stop our own consumption of pornography, this will not stop children from stumbling upon such sites in the future. What can we do?
Parents can buy and install software like NetNanny. (It’s too bad this software isn’t made freely available, but the $40 isn’t much compared to the cost of the computer and Internet service.) That’s a start and it will block most explicit sites. Keeping a watchful eye over your children helps, too, of course. Keep the family computer in an open area of the house where they will be reluctant to sneak on to sites they shouldn’t visit.
But you cannot control everything your children do, nor can you watch out for the children of others. All society is hurt when any children are exposed to pornographic images.
And children do need their private sphere. They need to be able to express themselves freely, without being afraid of having their intimacy invaded. And guess what might happen when they visit their friends?
Unfortunately, the deliberate decision by porn site operators to make their content easily accessible to children – and, in fact, by deliberately preying on children by creating domain names that are similar to the names of cartoon characters like Pokeman – leaves society no choice but to demand change.
So, again, what can we do?
For a Safer Web – We’re Calling Out Bloggers
We can unite our voices to send out a common sense request to all the “adult site” webmasters:
Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information.
It’s true that children might login as well, but not so many as one may think. The fear and shame of being caught are still crucial stoppers.
So we call out the bloggers and everyone else out there who cares enough to help us deliver this special appeal to porn webmasters. It might seem like a little step, but it’s not.
A password-protected login prevents small kids from having direct access to extreme pornographic images. It will not stop older kids from actually making accounts to the porn sites, but until the children reach the “let me make an account” age, we’ll have enough time (or should have enough time) to educate them.
Let’s see if what collective power there is in our united voices (and keyboards!), shall we? We are a strong community; we should prove that our voices matter. And the porn webmasters will listen, eventually. They depend on adult paying customers who are in our on-line communities as well. Those webmasters who demonstrate civic awareness and responsibility will benefit in the market, just as any corporation must be mindful of its reputation.
And we are speaking to political leaders through out the world as well. If the adult website operators don’t respond with positive action, then we will urge governments to require password protection.
This is NOT censure; it’s not an attack on anyone’s freedom of expression. It’s common sense. Even Hustler is delivered in a plastic foil wrapper. That wrapper does not inhibit Hustler’s free speech, nor restrict legitimate customers from consuming its content. Now we need similar safeguards for the web.
So don’t let the children down. Join us; write about this issue in your blogs. Use the logos on your blog as a pro bono advertisement linking to this site.
Or just speak out. You don’t need to link to this article, you don’t even need to mention our names. Just make your voice heard. Ask your friends to blog on the same topic as well:
Make the web safer for children — password-protected login on porn sites for all the explicit materials, no more “free clips”, “free tours”, “free pics” without login!
The more voices, the better. And let’s speak until someone listens!
Let’s make the Web a safer place for children!
And once you post your entry on your blog, get back to us. We need to make a list of all those entries at the end of this call to action. We’ll link to your blog and collect all your entries. We need to do it to show it to the offline media how far the blogging community is ready to go to protect the interest of the children. We need to do it to show it to the politicians that the public opinion requests measures.
Thanks for your support!
Mihaela and Jon
